


The Collective

by activevirtues



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Death References, Gen, References to Suicide, Shapeshifting, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/activevirtues/pseuds/activevirtues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crow came at night, when Alun couldn’t sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Collective

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melissima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melissima/gifts).



The crow came at night, when Alun couldn’t sleep.  
  
Sleep came rarely and with difficulty, now that his mum was gone. When he closed his eyes he saw her, the spatter of her blood against the wall, the curl of her fingers that would never open. He sometimes could steal a nap on the bus home, or on the train when he went to stay with his granddad on the weekends in Goodwick. In school, he would nod off and awaken to find his teacher - the teacher of whichever class he’d floated through that hour - standing over him. They always had the same expression, when he met their eyes. Pity - sympathy, he tried to tell himself, not pity. Reluctance to speak. Some small attempt at warmth.  
  
Fear, too, more obvious if they weren’t adept at hiding it.  
  
Alun knew fear, though, and could see it in even the most stone-faced of all the adults around him.  
  
Even if they never shook him awake, what he got at school could barely be called sleep. It didn’t satisfy him, and when he went home every day he was tired through his bones.  
  
At night, though, the crow came. The first few weeks after his mum’s death he visited sporadically, and said nothing. He would perch outside Alun’s window and stare in at him and Alun would stare back until the light outside turned grey. Then he would fly off, and Alun would fall back against the pillow and wonder when this would end, the sameness of his days and the hole that gaped in his chest. He would wish with all his might that the crow would leave him be, and then he would feel guilty for not wishing that his mum would be okay, that she wouldn’t have left her life’s blood painted across the lino of their kitchen.  
  
The crow wouldn’t show up for a few days, and then he would be there, perched on his windowsill through the night. Sometimes he thought idly about feeding him - maybe something crows were allergic to, so he could see what the crow would do. Sometimes he thought about building a cage, and keeping the crow with him as a pet. But he didn’t know what crows could and couldn’t eat, and he didn’t know where the crow flew off to when he wasn’t keeping his vigil by Alun’s window. Each plan was abandoned in favour of staring back, feeling the beat of his heart slow until the world narrowed down to the space between him and the crow.  
  
Then one night when the crow flew down and perched on the window sill, Alun could see that he held a stick in his beak, something he’d picked off the ground. He scratched at the window three times with the branch - _skrrr, skrrr, skrrr_ \- and then waited.  
  
Alun stood up. The crow dropped the branch and tilted his head, watched him walk toward the window.  
  
The crow stared up at him expectantly.  
  
“Fine,” Alun said. “Fine.”  
  
When he opened the window the crow did not fly in immediately, which is rather what Alun had expected. He did, however, say, “Thank you, Alun.”  
  
“You’re welcome,” Alun said, because politeness was important even if it was toward a talking crow on his windowsill.  
  
Now the crow flew inside and came to a perch on one of the posters of his bed. “You’ve had a rough time of it since the last time we talked,” he said.  
  
Alun blinked. “I don’t think I’ve ever talked to you before in my life,” he said. “Or any other animal, for that matter.”  
  
“You may be right,” the crow replied. “Or maybe not. I should probably check to make sure.”  
  
“Probably,” Alun said.  
  
The crow nodded at him and flew off into the night.  
  
Alun fell asleep then, and in his dreams the screaming was strangely muffled, as if smothered by a pillow.  
  
The crow was back the next night, and when Alun opened the window he flew in and settled in the same spot. “You’re definitely the right Alun,” he said. “I checked.”  
  
“Okay,” Alun said.  
  
They stared at one another like they’d done through the window so many nights.  
  
Finally, the crow said, “So, tell me about school.”  
  
So Alun did.  
  
\---  
  
The crow didn’t come every night, but he came often enough that, though the days were growing colder, Alun left his window open in case he showed up. He would swoop in after sunset, perch on the end of Alun’s bed, and they would talk. Now, Alun hadn’t particularly wanted to talk to anyone after his mum died, but for some reason the novelty of a crow asking him questions pulled answers out of him. The crow seemed to sense it on days when talking was too much, and would stay with him anyway, chattering about nothing or just being silent.  
  
“I don’t remember it,” Alun said one night, feeling as if the words were pulled out of him by some unseen force.  
  
The crow didn’t ask what it was Alun didn’t remember. Instead, he said, “Have you ever thought about why that is?”  
  
“The counsellor at school says that my brain was trying to protect me,” Alun replied. “She says that - that it’s normal, when someone you care about kills themself. You don’t want to remember.”  
  
“Maybe that’s what happened,” the crow said. “Maybe not.”  
  
Alun laid back on his bed, settling into the pillows and looking up at the crow. “You think she’s wrong?”  
  
“On several levels,” the crow said.  
  
Alun said nothing, and the silence stretched out like night creeping across the sky, growing until it settled over the room and Alun was reluctant to end it.  
  
“Do you know,” the crow said finally, “why I come here?”  
  
“I didn’t want to ask,” Alun said. “It seemed rude to question it.”  
  
“Have you thought about what it would be like to get away from here? To leave, to escape all the memories you’re trying so hard to stay away from?”  
  
Alun frowned. “I’m not trying to stay away from my memories,” he told the crow. “I can’t remember. There’s a difference.”  
  
The crow’s voice was gentle, pitying. “Not for you, Alun.”  
  
“Fine,” Alun said, “I’ve thought about it. But I’m 18 soon. I’ll leave school, I’ll go to university, get a good job...”  
  
“No, you won’t.”  
  
“Why not?” Alan said, trying to keep his voice down. “Why not me? Why shouldn’t I have that?”  
  
“You don’t want it,” the crow told him. “You want to be free. University, jobs, the things the world expects you to do - these are bonds that people create who need their shackles to feel safe. You have always wanted to be free. That’s what I offer you.”  
  
“Why?” Alun said. “Why me?”  
  
“My clan lost a member recently,” the crow said. “When one of us moves on, he must be replaced. There are a very specific set of requirements for a new member. Not very many people fit the criteria, Alun, but you do.”  
  
The crow hopped from the poster at the end of the bed - the first time since he had begun to visit Alun that he had settled anywhere else - and perched on Alun’s arm. “It would be so easy,” the crow said. “We are free, my clan. We have one duty, and beyond that we go where we will. We may be alone, if we wish, or stay together. We have no bonds. We live, and do not die.” His eyes flashed crimson in the lamplight, and Alun leaned in close to hear his words. “We need you, Alun. Join us.”  
  
He felt something shake loose at the edge of his memory. The crow’s eyes, red as a bloody handprint, held his. “What do I need to do?” Alun said slowly.  
  
“You have already done most of it,” the crow said. “The only thing left for you to do is fly.”  
  
Then the crow set aloft, flying toward the open window and settling on the windowsill, waiting. “Follow me, if you have made your choice.”  
  
Alun walked to the window. Four storeys below him, the snow on the ground looked pristine, untouched and perfect in the moonlight. He climbed up and sat next to the crow.  
  
“Are you ready?” the crow asked.  
  
“Ready,” Alun said.  
  
“After you, then.”  
  
Alun jumped.

**Author's Note:**

> A collective of crows is called a murder.


End file.
